Chuck Allen begged off the question just like you’d expect from an overachieving linebacker selected in the 28th round of the NFL Draft, which is what he was a half-century ago.

So, Chuck, when the Chargers play the Seahawks next fall, who will you root for?

Long silence. Then, from his Seattle-area home, he responded: “I’m not going to answer that question.”

Chuck Allen

Then: Linebacker at the University of Washington who played on two Rose Bowl championship teams (1960 vs. Wisconsin, 44-8; and 1961 vs. Minnesota, 17-7); played nine seasons for the Chargers, two for the Steelers and one for the Eagles before retiring as a player in 1972; served as the Seahawks’ vice president of football operations from 1976 until 1994.

Now: Retired, living in Washington.

Allen is retired now, from football and everything else. The 223rd pick in the 1961 American Football League draft, he became a starting linebacker for the Chargers during a nine-year span from 1961-69, which included their AFL championship team of 1963. When his playing career ended in 1972 after short stints with the Steelers and Eagles, he eventually joined the expansion Seahawks, working as their vice president of football operations for close to 20 years.

Hence, the “no comment” on which team’s colors he will don when the Chargers host the Seahawks this fall.

In the three years between those football gigs, Allen bounced around in the banking world and even helped his father-in-law on a Washington mink (yes, as in mink coats) farm.

“That was interesting,” he said.

On the Chargers, Allen was known as an undersized (6-foot-1, 215 pounds) linebacker who played his guts out. During his rookie year of 1961, he suffered a broken leg in a late-season game against the New York Titans. His young wife, pregnant at the time, came running down to the field to be with him as the ambulance took him to the hospital.

But that isn’t the most vivid memory he has of his days with the Chargers.

“It’s hard not to think of the training camp we had at Rough Acres out in the desert near Boulevard,” Allen said of the facility that the team called home before the championship season. “The big thing out there was rattlesnakes and tarantulas. We’d be watching films in one of the rooms, and all of a sudden here would come two or three huge tarantulas walking across the room. And every night when some of the guys would be playing pingpong, here they would come again.

“But, you know what, I think that camp is what made the difference that season. It certainly brought us closer together.”

The 1963 team finished the regular season 11-3 and then embarrassed the Boston Patriots 51-10 in the AFL title game at Balboa Stadium.

“My most vivid memory of that game and of that team was just how good we were. Some people think we had one of the best teams in the history of pro football. We proved it in the championship game. We just went out there and kicked their butts.”